Old Mrs. Barry—perhaps taking a lesson in politeness from Cecil—said, carelessly:
“You may go to Ferndale, Louise, and get your clothes and everything that belongs to you personally, for you will never see a penny of my money.”
“I do not want it, for it has been the curse of my life! It tempted me, and made me the sinner that I am!” Louise answered, bitterly, as she turned away, and without a word of farewell to any one, left the house which she had entered so proudly but a little while ago.
Perhaps the hard old aunt remembered those words and reflected on them; for when she died, several years later, it was found that, after a legacy of twenty thousand dollars to Cecil Laurens’ wife, she had given twenty thousand to John Keith, and Ferndale and all her other estates to her grandniece, little Lucy Keith.
“It will keep the money in the family; and John Keith is a good man, and deserves something for taking Louise back after all her wickedness, and trying to make a good woman out of such poor material,” she wrote.
To her servants each she left a small legacy of five hundred dollars, which made them very grateful and happy; and they forgot all her faults, and lauded “Ole Mistis” to the skies.
Ferndale was shut up for a long time, and then sold, for John Keith could never bring his family back to the county where the story of his wife’s wicked schemes was for years a subject of gossip.
“I shall leave here as soon as I can make some arrangements for mother and Dot,” Cecil said, when he had bidden John Keith farewell and God-speed. “I must lose no time in seeking my wife, and revealing to her my knowledge of the treachery that parted us.”
It touched him to see his stately mother sobbing forlornly in Dot’s sympathizing arms. He knew it was sorrow and remorse for her hardness to his wife.